*** Okay, fine. This isn’t the first IC discussion where the subject has been raised, and owlafaye isn’t the only anti-religious bigot I’ve encountered. I was making a general point, but let’s limit the discussion to this exchange only.

“What bothers me is people who ignore or deny what is quite settled and well-established.”

*** As a general comment, what bothers me is when people use “consensus” to define what is “quite settled and well-established.”

Regarding human evolution, I’ve said about 10 times so far you folks are all having a parallel conversation here. As I said in comment 18:

Just to clarify this discussion a bit:

1. Do those who reject “evolution” as an explanation for species change reject all evolution, or just “human evolution”? In other words, is this discussion about the impossibility of evolution period, or the belief that humans did not evolve the way other species did?

2. For those who expressly reject the notion of human evolution: is this because in your understanding of science it is impossible for humans to have evolved? Or, is it because of a belief that modern science, in proposing evolution as an explanation, is doing this to deny the existence of God and/or challenge basic religious beliefs?

3. Assuming that your religious beliefs come from the Bible, and that the translations of the Bible into English are 100% accurate (both the words themselves, and the context in which the words are used), is it impossible to believe that the story of creation is a metaphor instead of a literal description of historical events? In other words, why is it impossible to believe in God, believe that God acts purposefully, believe that God created man, and that this creation occurred through an evolutionary process?

Those of you who know me from my previous writings know that I’m not raising these points to ridicule any belief. I’m simply attempting to clarify exactly what is at debate in this discussion.

Regarding your comments about what others have said, I’m not a biblical literalist/creationist, so I can’t defend something that I don’t personally believe. I understand why these people believe what they do, because they aren’t arguing the strict “science” of the issue. Their understanding of the universe relies on more than science to provide answers.

I’ll spare everyone reposting what I said in my essay on “The Politics of Science and Religion”, and just leave you with this thought.

Comparing the beliefs put forward by science with those put forward by specific religion(s) is not the same thing as pitting science against God. Because of this, I have absolutely no problem presenting Creationism as a theory to compete with other theories about the subject. Knowledge is not advanced by suppressing beliefs, but rather by subjecting them to scrutiny. If Creationists want to have their faith evaluated as a scientific fact, then that’s fine by me. Compare and contrast their evidence with that of Darwin and his successors, and see who’s left standing.

On the other hand, if the Biblical story of creation is more properly viewed as a matter of faith, not science — which I think is the way most fundamentalists would categorize their beliefs — then the laws of science have nothing to do with validating or debunking it. Whatever judgment science makes about the Earth being created according to the Book of Genesis is irrelevant, since the scientific method is not the standard by which the Bible is evaluated. But this also means that the concept of Creationism has no business being taught in a science classroom since a literal belief in the Book of Genesis is a matter of faith, not science.

The Bible, and Darwin, ask and answer entirely different questions. The Bible teaches us philosophically how to think about things, and in so doing, orient ourselves within the universe. This in turn teaches us how to act in relation to our surroundings, how to interact with our fellow man, and most importantly, how to recognize God and honor Him appropriately.

Darwin, on the other hand, doesn’t address the question of why we exist, but rather how we might have been created. Explaining why natural selection operates as Darwin suggests doesn’t answer the philosophical or metaphysical questions of life — who created us, what is our purpose on Earth, etc.? Rather, it only addresses the mechanics of life — what natural processes were involved in how a species changed and adapted over the passage of time?

The Bible and Darwin are two sides of the same coin, related but quite different in what they set out to do, and how they do it. …

Faith gives focus and meaning to our lives, but fails dramatically when it tries to become indistinguishable from science — the Earth is only 6,000 years old, fossil evidence be damned! Science tells us how things behave or come about, but errs equally when it tries to assert why — man’s appearance on the Earth is random because man can’t fully explain it otherwise, therefore there is no God! And when you apply faith or science to political and social matters, things get completely screwed up. We either end up mandating one faith for everyone, or denying the existence of God all together as the debate over prayer in public schools more than aptly demonstrates.

While science may be better at assessing facts and understanding processes than faith, it isn’t infallible. And while faith may be better than science at understanding why we exist and what we’re supposed to do with the life we’ve been given, faith by its very nature is also a matter of personal belief; and personal beliefs cannot be imposed on others. Faith must be embraced, not legislated, to have any real value to an individual.

Be that as it may, as you say, you don’t intend your ‘charges’ to apply to me. (Even though ‘the bigots taint my side’, I guess…) I’ve got no problem with people having hypotheses or even beliefs about what lives in the areas outside settled science. Kind of by definition, there’s no proof that any such ideas are wrong… yet. What bothers me is people who ignore or deny what is quite settled and well-established. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.”

Mr. Skurka, for example, portrays scientists as utterly complacent about the “specific genetic mutations at what specific times” that “describes the evolution of humans”. This is, in fact, an area of very active research and… oh, heck. Just google on “human-specific mutations” and you’ll find a bunch. Is there a complete case yet? No, of course not, even as not everything is known about aeronautics. (The transition from laminar airflow to turbulent flow is very, very important in aeronautics and still isn’t fully understood; hence, the caution airplane engineering displays. Indeed, airplane manufacturers are almost as conservative and paranoid as pilots.) But quite a few very good results have been obtained… google up ‘neuropsin’, for example. In time… well, I think Mr. Skurka might want to be careful what he wishes for.

Moreover, he – along with everyone else here and nearly every single creationist I’ve ever seen or heard of – also ignores the strong evidence for common descent I pointed out at the beginning of this discussion. The second link points to very specific evidence for the relationship between humans and chimpanzees, Mr. Skurka’s current topic. Even if his parody of aeronautics bore any relation to reality in evolutionary theory, that evidence is as solid a proof as the Wright Brothers demonstrating heavier-than-air flight. Common descent happened, or else some Creator(s) wanted it to look that way. Maybe natural selection is not the way it happened, or not the entire way (though it looks pretty good from what I’ve seen) but trying to deny common descent is just pointless. You may not be able to immediately tell if two pieces of metal were laser-welded or arc-welded or flame-welded or chemically-welded, but it’s not that hard to see that they were welded.

Most “intelligent design” types don’t go that far – they accept common descent (sometimes to the chagrin of their allies) but go the “not the entire way” route on natural selection. They’ve not come up with any impressive or even useful results up to this point, though.

We’ve always relied on math to predict the unknown (and perhaps unknowable). Why don’t some trust it with this question?

I don’t believe Freelunch was questioning your credentials here. I believe your offense to the above quote is unwarranted.

Just my 2-cents.

Cheers,
william

For example, suppose someone asked you to describe what specific factors of natural selection acting upon which specific genetic mutations at what specific times describes the evolution of humans. To name just one specific among the many claimed human evolutionary changes, if there are 193 species of simians, 192 covered entirely with hair and 1 relatively hairless, what natural selection factors caused this hair-loss change, what genes mutated in what specific order affecting what specific proteins and embryological development processes at what time in the evolutionary sequence? Evolutionary biologists would respond: “Are you crazy, no one knows that”. And then, of course, followed by the face saving response: “We don’t know those things now, but we probably will in the future.” Would you characterize this response to a basically simple question about a widely-held belief as a case of “insufficient data to formulate a conclusion” or “evolution is a fact”?

As you have written previously, the late Stephen Jay Gould and his colleague Niles Eldridge formulated “punctuated equilibrium” to explain the lack of fossil evidence. Also, Lynn Margulis and her son Dorion Sagan (yeah, related to Carl Sagan) formulated “symbiogenesis” to explain evolution by symbiosis and Michael Behe, among others, formulated “intelligent design” to explain biological complexity that can’t be attributed to orthodox gradualist theories – and let’s not forget Stuart Kauffman of the Santa Fe Institute and complexity theory to explain everything biological. As is normal in science, each of these “rebels” in turn verbally trashed the orthodox Darwinians and their theory in order to promote their own particular theories. So, we find ourselves asked to believe a process no one agrees on in its specifics, but do agree on in vague concepts. “Insufficient data” again or “this is how science operates”?

Imagine you’re cooling your heels at O’Hare between connecting flights and fall into conversation with another bored traveler who turns out to be a Vice President of Boeing Commercial Aircraft Division. While swapping business gossip, the VP tells you that no one at Boeing actually knows what makes their aircraft take off, reach cruising speed and then successfully land. Further, you’re told that Boeing engineers have several different theories explaining these phenomena but can’t prove, or even agree on, which theory is correct – they hope to some day have an answer. And, in conclusion, they believe in winged flight since the Wright Brothers successfully demonstrated it, but their aircraft designs are basically just trial and error since they’re not sure how powered flight actually works.

Hearing this tale, you might take a surreptitious peak at your travel itinerary hoping mightily it shows your next flight is on an Airbus A340. However, the VP concludes by telling you this is how aircraft engineering works – formulating various theories about powered flight and arguing constantly among themselves – which is really a good thing – although mistakes occasionally happen.

People who don’t know how powered flight actually works are called aircraft passengers – people who do know are called “test pilots”. But, aircraft passengers are absolutely certain of one thing – someone somewhere knows how powered flight works or these passengers wouldn’t board the plane – no illusions on that score, the undesirable consequences of not knowing or relying on vague, unsupported theories and outright speculations are just too great to accept.

On the other hand, you could take off, fly for 9 hours and then touchdown never knowing if evolution is actually true and even harboring suspicions that no else knows either. The consequences of not knowing aren’t important to you. The consequences of no one else knowing aren’t important to you either. Illusions flourish best when the consequences of not knowing are unimportant – and therein may lie the difference between knowledge and illusion.

*** I agree that there are owlafaye’s on both sides. All I can say is with respect to this exchange is, there’s only been one owlafaye.

“But it’s worth noting that, so far as I can see, every single accusation of ‘ideologically-driven science’ is made by someone with their own ideological drive.”

*** Again, we’re having a bit of a parallel conversation. If there were no agendas/assumptions/biases in science, then there would be no objection to allowing any hypothesis to be put forward and tested. If the data is there to support it, it’s deemed valid.

But not every hypothesis is allowed. The funding agencies that control money for scientific research approve only certain types of research. The mainstream journals only accept and publish certain types of studies. And then there’s the personal biases that scientists themselves hold that Thomas Kuhn documented.

All science, like all human activity, takes place within a framework. There is no such thing as pure data, since data is always subject to interpretation. Even what “works better” is a matter of interpretation, as the climate model examples I cited above show.

So yes, “every single accusation of ‘ideologically-driven science’ is made by someone with their own ideological drive,” if by this you mean that everyone has a world view and set of assumptions that form the foundations of their thoughts. With regard to human evolution, the rift I see between a “science” and “religious” starting point is the debate whether science, and only science, can explain everything in the universe.

I don’t see any hidden agendas in an approach that says “science and religion deal with related, but separate issues.” [Seems like there’s a good article on this in the IC archives]. But I do see hidden agendas where someone says that only science can provide answers to life’s questions, and further, believing that God exists disqualifies someone from providing any answers that conflict with what man is capable of observing directly.
You haven’t taken this position, so none of these charges are directed against you. I may quibble with where you draw a line between science and faith, but I appreciate the fact that while you personally don’t believe in God, you aren’t bigoted against those who do.

Instead, you are simply doing what I advised previously; asking that purely scientific questions be analyzed scientifically. The problem is, what you maintain is a purely scientific question, I and others believe science can’t fully answer; or at best, science can provide part of the answers (the “how”), but not the “why”.

As to the ‘hidden agendas’ bit – I suppose I was a bit imprecise. Those who decry science’s ‘hidden agendas’ generally limit the criticism to the areas of science that are goring their own oxes. “Oh, sure, most science is cool, but those jerks over there who are saying something I don’t like, they’re all biased.” The people who don’t like evolution generally don’t have a problem with, say, climatology, and the people who have economic issues with global warming usually don’t mind evolution. A few people totalize it, and toss out most of science, but generally they are the ones who are questioning something really fundamental and settled. They realize how tied-together much of science is. Like the young-Earth types, who have to reject not only evolution but biology, geology, chemistry, and physics.

That’s not to say that science can’t be ideologically-driven or that widely-held and self-serving errors can’t last way longer than they should in science. (Consider the accepted wisdom that letting women attend college would cause their ovaries to atrophy.) But it’s worth noting that, so far as I can see, every single accusation of ‘ideologically-driven science’ is made by someone with their own ideological drive. That’s why I like to focus on the actual data and science – a decision’s actually possible there. If the data doesn’t work, then it should be possible to show that. If another idea works better, then it should be possible to show that.

It’s nice to see that you know that there isn’t any anthropogenic effect to the climate, even though you have never offered any references to any scientific papers. Thank you.

Go prepare for the coming man-made global warming crisis you “know” is real, but feel no need to prove. And trust that every scientific issue is entirely devoid of any hidden agendas. Meanwhile, I’m going to go do some heavy breathing and see how much Co2 I can put into the atmosphere to raise the oceans about 60 feet so I can turn my home into lakefront property.